2007 Convocation Remarks by President David McClain

Regents, distinguished members of the legislature, chancellors and vice presidents, my colleagues on the faculty, members of our dedicated staff…

Aloha and welcome to our annual convocation honoring those among us who have been leaders in teaching, research and service to our community.

This is my fourth convocation as your president; in 2004 and the years since I’ve invoked the observations of a wide range of authorities, including the 17th-century Japanese poet Basho, Jim Collins of "Good to Great" fame and 20th century journalist and novelist Henry Adams…along with the lyrics of the Beatles and the Supremes.

Not to worry…I only sing in even numbered years.

Last year as I reviewed the state of the university, I counseled that we need to match the "gaiatsu" of outside pressure for better performance with a spirit of self-generated "naiatsu" (inside pressure) to operate more efficiently—and to insure that students who have access to UH achieve success as well, with
less remediation, better articulation and transfer, better retention and improved
graduation rates.

Last year I also talked with you about the wonderful example of centenarian Anna Sloggett. Anna, a contemporary of Gladys Kamakakuokalani Brandt, our former regent for whom the UH Manoa Center for Hawaiian Studies is named, taught third grade at public and private schools on Maui, Oahu and Kauai. She celebrated her 100th birthday last year by playing in a golf tournament in her honor and concluded her birthday party by dancing the hula.

This year finds us in the midst of our own 100th birthday party, and it certainly has been a time of joy and celebration, of memories and nostalgia.

Most of you have heard me talk about our humble beginnings…about our first football game in 1909, which we won, against McKinley High School.

I’ve spoken about the lives we’ve touched, one by one and generation by generation.

And I’ve recalled with pride the fact that, in the last century, UH has done more to advance social justice and economic self-reliance than any other institution in our state.

I know you are proud of these accomplishments too.

Today I want to focus on the university’s future and, in particular, on the power of philanthropy and partnerships to transform a very good university into a great one.

At the Oahu launch of the public phase of our Centennial Campaign on Aug. 18, 2007, I cited the vision of Jay and Wallette Shidler, who last fall
invested more than $25 million at UH Manoa with a goal of moving the Shidler
College of Business into the top 25 public business schools by 2013.

Since I became the chief executive officer of the UH System, the legislature has appropriated and the governor has approved

$200 million in additional and continuing operating funds for the university,

and $377 million in additional capital improvement funds financed by general obligation bonds,

including $166 million earmarked for capital renewal and deferred maintenance, and health and safety.

We’re using public private partnerships to address the state’s higher education needs, building out new dormitories on Maui and Manoa, and creating whole new campuses in West Oahu and West Hawaii.

We’re making headway on improving the education pipeline from early childhood to the university. Our P–20 initiative, a partnership with the Good Beginnings Alliance and the Department of Education, recently received a $10 million grant from the Kellogg Foundation to insure that all eight year olds can read on grade level by 2015. The American Diploma Project and the Achieving the Dream initiatives, financially assisted by the Castle Foundation, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and Kamehameha Schools, are also promoting college readiness.

We’re responding to workforce development issues by creating construction academies in 26 public high schools, and this year by creating STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) academies in 14 public high schools, and the innovative MELE program at Honolulu Community College.

And we’ve started the President’s Emerging Leaders Program, to grow our own leaders; we had 125 applications for the first cohort, which begins tomorrow with 32 participants.

Also key to our fundraising success is our governance process, which received high marks last year by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges in its visit to the UH System. As the newly formed Regents Candidate Advisory Council screens candidates for the Board of Regents, it will want to select individuals able to sustain this record of accomplishment.

In many respects, UH is better off today than we were three years ago, and we can all be proud of that. But there’s more to be done.

First, we need to improve our college going rates, our retention and transfer rates and our graduation rates, setting and reaching specific goals that will bring us to the levels achieved by our peers.

Second, we need to do more to insure the safety of students on our campuses. In the coming days, we’ll release a report of a survey I commissioned in collaboration with the Commission on the Status of Women which will indicate the degree of unreported sexual and relationship violence experienced on and off campus by our students across the system. UH is not unusual in comparison with other campuses nationwide, but that’s little comfort to the individuals surveyed who have experienced such violence. We need to do more to address this social issue.

Our supplemental operating budget request contains as its top priority $8 million in funding for additional security on our campuses, building on the funding received in the last three years.

Third, we need to do more to improve the quality of our facilities and to
create additional housing for students…and for faculty. In the coming
decade, retirements will force us to compete for new faculty talent, but our
ability to do so will be compromised by high housing costs.

In this regard, I’m pleased to report a measure of success on three fronts. First, the legislature approved and the governor signed authority for UH to issue, with approval of the governor, up to $100 million in special purpose revenue bonds, which will allow us to address our student—and faculty—housing needs.

We’re exploring with local financial institutions and with the UH Foundation a program similar to one used by some private schools for their faculty, under which the school (in this case it would be the UH Foundation) guarantees the down-payment for new faculty.

In addition, effective with next spring’s faculty recruiting cycle I am directing Vice President and Chief Executive Officer Howard Todo to restart the university’s mortgage assistance program, suspended several years ago. We will start with an initial capitalization of $1 million, to be increased if the initiative with local financial institutions and with the UH Foundation doesn’t bear fruit.

Finally, we need to do more to insure access with success for students in underrepresented groups, particularly Native Hawaiians, whose culture and values are at the core of the university’s strategic plan through the year 2010.

To be sure, we’ve made significant strides in promoting Hawaiian language, culture and values in our curriculum. At UH Hilo, we’ve launched a doctorate in indigenous language revitalization; at UH Manoa, we’ve created Hawaiinuiakea, the School of Hawaiian Knowledge. Both are pathbreaking in a global context.

At our community colleges, as noted above, with the help of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and Kamehameha Schools the Achieving the Dream project is focused on insuring both access and success for Native Hawaiians.

We need to do more than we have done to insure that Native Hawaiians have access to these curricula.

In fact, we need to do more than we have done to insure that Native Hawaiians have access to the entire body of remarkable scholarship in the arts and sciences available on all our campuses.

We’re fond of saying that the University of Hawaii is "like no place else on earth," and were proud that we’re one of the few universities designated a land-grant, sea-grant and space-grant institution.

Or, as someone put it more poetically, our ahupuaa runs from the ocean to the stars.

We need to do more to acknowledge the fact that the remarkable scholarship for which our faculty are renowned occurs in this unique physical and geographic environment, on land first populated many centuries ago by the Native Hawaiians.

Simply put, we need to acknowledge our role as stewards of these Hawaiian lands.

Last year some 3,000 Native Hawaiian students applied for financial aid. While more than 2,300 received some form of federal, state, UH or UH Foundation grant or scholarship, 700 were turned away.

The total value of UH aid provided was almost $2.5 million, including tuition
waivers valued at $870,000.

In the spirit of stewardship, we can do better, and we must do better.

Accordingly, as I announced last evening at Nanaikapono Elementary School in Nanakuli, starting with the fall of 2008 we will create a Second Century Scholars program that, by the fall of 2010, will double need-based financial aid to Native Hawaiians to $5 million per year.

The UH System itself will lead this initiative, providing the additional resources to our campuses and working with the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Kamehameha Schools and other Native Hawaiian education providers to insure that the Second Century Scholars program is well-publicized to undergraduate and graduate students alike.

Fulfilling the vision of our strategic plan, by 2010 many more Native Hawaiian children who aspire to be engineers or doctors or astronomers or marine biologists will know that they can pursue their dreams unfettered by financial restraints.

These Second Century Scholarships for Native Hawaiians with financial need provide a fitting way forward for your university as we embark on our next 100 years.

Speaking of second centuries, I’m pleased to report that Anna Sloggett has now turned 101. Wendie and I look forward to seeing her tomorrow night when we kick off the UH Centennial Campaign’s public phase on Kauai.

Congratulations to all of today’s honorees. We’re grateful for your leadership and your commitment to the university and to the many, many communities we have served since 1907 and will serve in the century before us.